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Updates From the Funeral of N.Y.P.D. Officer Rafael Ramos

By The New York Times December 27, 2014 9:27 amDecember 27, 2014 9:27 am

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The sons of Rafael Ramos, accompanied by relatives, arrived for their father's funeral at Christ Tabernacle Church.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Updated 1:54 p.m. | Officer Rafael Ramos, who was shot dead with his partner last Saturday in their patrol car in Brooklyn, was laid to rest today in Queens after a funeral service attended by tens of thousands of police officers who filled the streets.

Officer Ramos, who was posthumously promoted to detective, was eulogized at Christ Tabernacle Church by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others.

In the streets outside, the memorial turned into a protest of the mayor when officers turned their backs while he spoke.

A crowd of police officers turned away in protest from Mayor de Blasio’s projected image as he spoke inside Christ Tabernacle Church.Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Officer Ramos’s funeral service took place amid ongoing tension between police officers and Mayor de Blasio, who has drawn criticism from officers and union officials for what they say is the mayor’s insufficient support for the police and sympathy for demonstrators.

While the mayor delivered his eulogy for Officer Ramos, some officers out on the street turned their backs. The question was how many.

A video posted to Youtube by NYC Fire Wire appears to show a whole street full of uniformed officers turning away from the church where the mayor was speaking:

The video is shot looking west on Myrtle Avenue toward Christ Tabernacle Church. At the beginning of the clip, the officers face away from the camera — that is, toward the church.

At about 0:44, the officers turn en masse and face toward the camera — that is, away from the church.

Officers lined the rooftops to watch their colleague’s funeral procession.Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Scores of New York Police Department motorcycles led the escort for Officer Ramos, followed by motorcycles from dozens of other departments — from Newark, Suffolk County, Long Beach, West Hartford, and even New Orleans.

Police Department buses filled with uniformed officers rolled past. Some had tears in their eyes.

After the hearse passed by, accompanied by the hollow sound of drums, officers lining the procession route silently dropped their salute.

When Officer Ramos’s coffin reached the end of the half-mile line of police, bagpipes began to play.

At a walking pace, Officer Ramos’s long funeral motorcade headed down Cypress Hills Street on the 1.3-mile journey to Cypress Hills Cemetery, the crowd quiet but the air filled with the thrum of helicopters overhead.

Outside the church, police officers from around the city and the country lined up on both sides of Cypress Hills Street, sometimes five or six deep. Their formation stretched for half a mile, standing sentry along the route to the nearby cemetery.

As Mr. de Blasio’s voice echoed from the jumbotron speakers, a few officers several blocks from the church turned their backs — just as officers did last Saturday when the mayor arrived at the hospital where Officer Ramos died.

Asked if they faced away because the mayor was speaking, one of them slowly nodded his head.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton outside the church on Saturday morning.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Mayor Bill de Blasio extended condolences to Officer Ramos’s family “on behalf of all 8.4 million New Yorkers.”

He spoke of the officer’s daily passions: “He loved playing basketball with his sons in Highland Park. He loved blasting Spanish gospel music from his car. He loved life so deeply.”

And the mayor described the officer as a man of profound faith.

“He spent the last 10 weeks of his life studying to be a chaplain, and he was taken from us on the day he was to graduate,” the mayor said. “He was already serving in so many ways, but he felt deeply called to serve spiritually as well.”

Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s remarks at Officer Ramos’s funeral were telecast on a screen outside the Christ Tabernacle Church.Credit Andrew Renneisen for The New York Times

Mr. Biden told the police: “You are lucky to know Rafael. He didn’t just have a Bible in his locker, he lived it in his heart.”

He offered kind words for Officer Ramos’s widow and mother, and he told the officer’s sons: “Justin and Jaden, know that although your father is gone, you have inherited an entire family. The men and women of the New York Police Department will always be there as long as you are alive. They never, ever, ever forget.”

“I’m sure I speak for the whole nation when I say to you that our hearts ache for you,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told Officer Ramos’s family as he began his eulogy.

“I know from personal experience that there is little anyone can say or do at this moment to ease the pain, that sense of loss, that sense of loneliness,” he continued. “But I do hope you take some solace that there are, according to the press, 25,000 members of the same fraternity and sorority” inside and outside the church.

He told Officer Ramos’s sons, “He will be part of your life for the entirety of your life.”

A block from the church, at the edge of a sea of officers and unmarked police cars, there was a lone sign held aloft attacking Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose relations with the police have been badly strained.

“God bless the N.Y.P.D.,” it said. “Dump de Blasio.”

John Mangan, a 20-year veteran of the Police Department’s housing bureau who retired in 2002, held the sign as a helicopter buzzed overhead.

“Do you think there’s been enough support for police in the last couple weeks? I don’t think so,” he said.

“I want to see him in the back of a police car riding around in Bed-Stuy, so he can see the job they do every day,” Mr. Mangan said of the mayor. “Police do 100 good things every day that are never in the paper.”

Vincent Leone, who retired from the police force in March, snapped a picture of Mr. Mangan and his sign with his cell phone and said, “Love it.”

Mr. Leone said the sign captured a feeling many officers shared, even if they felt they couldn’t say it.

“He fanned the flames with what he said, and what he didn’t say,” Mr. Leone said of Mr. de Blasio.

Firefighters arrived this morning at Cypress Hill Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border, where Officer Rafael Ramos will be buried today.Credit Andrew Renneisen for The New York Times

Officer Ramos will be buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border after his funeral at Christ Tabernacle Church. Law enforcement officials began arriving at the cemetery early in the morning.

Kailua, Hawaii — President Obama, on vacation here with his family, asked Vice President Joseph R. Biden to attend the funeral of the slain New York City officer Rafael Ramos, and in many ways Mr. Biden is a more fitting choice.

Mr. Ramos, 40, was fatally shot along with his partner, Officer Wenjian Liu, while on duty last Saturday in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The murders come during a national debate about the role of policing and crime, issues that have not been central to the Obama administration but that Mr. Biden played a major role in shaping when he was a United States senator.

In 1994, Mr. Biden wrote the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, considered the most significant crime legislation ever passed. The bill, signed into law by President Clinton, set out to spend $30.2 billion to put more police officers on streets, build new prisons and create crime prevention programs.

The legislation banned assault weapons, expanded the number of crimes that fall under the federal death penalty, created tougher penalties for drug offenders, created new categories of crimes like hate crimes and sex crimes, and forced sex offenders to appear on a national register.

The vice president is scheduled to speak at Officer Ramos’s funeral, which is being held at the Christ Tabernacle Church in Glendale, in Queens. His office said his remarks would be streamed to the national media.

Officers and other mourners gathered this morning at Christ Tabernacle Church for the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

As the sun rose over the low-slung buildings in Glendale along the commercial strip of Myrtle Avenue, the scene was flooded with dark blue uniforms, news cameras and bomb-sniffing dogs. Streets were blocked off in several directions.

A thick crowd of officers in dress uniforms and white gloves embraced and chatted outside the Christ Tabernacle Church. A painted portrait of Officer Ramos, proud and serious in his uniform, kept watch over the crowd from outside the door to the church.

Police cars from many jurisdictions arrived at the scene, some with unfamiliar or far-off names: Gloucester, Camden, Wilmington, Seaside Park. Officers examined their reflection in their car mirrors, fixing their ties and their dress.

Civilians stood around, looking in awe at the sheer number of officers.

— ELIZABETH A. HARRIS AND SANDRA E. GARCIA

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